


the light, diffracted

by CkyKing



Series: beyond this fallen world [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Gen, Growing Pains, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-10 16:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11695881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CkyKing/pseuds/CkyKing
Summary: "Noctis’s life is a series of echoes, decisions rippling up and down in time, a slight delay he learns to calldéja-vufor the sake of his own sanity, already slipping at the tender age of eight."Given the gift – or curse, depending on the days – of seeing the past, the future and everything in between; Noctis tries to carve a path for himself—and mostly succeeds.Stand tall.





	1. and miles to go before i sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JazzRaft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/gifts).



> For Jazz, who precipitated my fall into FFXV Rare Pair Hell (lovely place, really; I definitely recommend it) and made me appreciate characters in ways I would have never imagined.

Noctis’s life is a series of echoes, decisions rippling up and down in time, a slight delay he learns to call _déja-vu_ for the sake of his own sanity, already slipping at the tender age of eight.

It begins with a bone-deep throbbing in his back, focused at the base of his spine as he leans back into the leather seats of the armoured car he is in. Little pulses of pain that spread out in zigzagging flashes behind his eyelids, the burn of a false movement escalating into the beat of a sprained wrist. At first, it’s easy to ignore, and how he wants it to go away!

He refuses to let anything force him back to Insomnia, to its familiar, and most of all, _boring_ sights : the Citadel and its golden, picture-perfect decor; the sprawling streets he is not allowed to explore; the throne room’s door behind which his father disappears every day without fail. And so, he grits his teeth and rides it out, turning to the window to hide from his nursemaid’s eagle-eyed stare, almost on par with Ignis’. A lightning fast spike of pain, there and gone just as fast – almost like he imagines a knife wound to feel like – forces him to bite the inside of his cheek to keep silent, but looking out at the blurred landscape rushing by reminds him of the reason why he endures this without complaint.

Like a caged bird finding its golden prison open, Noctis looks at everything around him with both fascination and apprehension; the first taste of freedom, unspoiled. The trees and wide open skies, the beaten dust and wild beasts, the kaleidoscope of colors and shapes scrolling past the window. The feelings they inspire gather inside his heart like storm clouds, send turmoil spiralling through his veins like the sweetest of poison—”The dreams of the blood royal are so easily fulfilled.”  Isn’t a little pain worth this, he wonders, asserts, injecting as much determination his fledgling body, its metal wings still scattered across Eos, can muster.

Soon enough, it fades into white noise, the bass, ever present and ever ready, to the symphonia of feelings and sensations singing through him. He ignores it when it deepens, widens, digging fiery lines of pain from shoulder to hip in increasingly deep scores, so much so he is surprised his fingers do not come away wet with blood when he sneaks them, trembling, under the hem of his shirt. He ignores it with all the might of a child’s desperation, wishes thrown into the wind in the hope they will come back someday.

He shouldn’t have.

The first thing he learns is this: the echoes do not discriminate. They do not make the difference between might and will, big and small. A papercut and being nearly torn apart is the same to them, and the knowledge will hang over his head until the time it comes to pass.

Lying in the dirt, stained in blood both his and not, hand feebly grasping at the sky, Noctis Lucis Caelum learns that he has no future, that the only path afforded to him will end in his premature death, everything and everyone he loves either broken or stolen. Even as young as he is, something inside him, the unsmelted iron deep inside his soul, refuses to let him die facedown in the dirt, awaiting his fate. It’s painful, and the gashes – real this time, nothing like the phantom pain from before – split at the edges with the effort of turning around, but he does it anyway. If anything, the echoes prepared him for it, battered his body enough that the agony of being split in two is manageable.

And still—and still, there is enough strength left in him to do more, to _reach_ and—

In the place where present and future meld, where time is broken down through the infinite prism of possibilities, he thinks _no, not yet, I don’t want to, I won’t._ And he is heard.

The Noctis that could be, that could have been; the King of Light for one night only smiles at the bright soul that he was once upon a time in the still moment before thirteen Kings and Queens claw their way out of him. Noctis-that-is will remember this moment in sensations for the rest of his life: raw magic – even stronger than his father’s at its peak – burning against his side as someone kneels next to him; his hand taken and enfolded in a larger one, the cold bite of metal against his palm a sharp contrast to the fire burning under his skin; a dry mouth on his forehead and the scratch of stubble; and finally _stand tall, and carve your own path; but for now, sleep._

Starlight coats his tongue and replaces the blood dripping from his lips, and the apparition disappears with the faint crackle of a weapon sent back to the ether to await its next summoning. He only manages to turn his head enough to see the half-woman, half-snake monster that attacked him – he carefully does not think _them_ , painfully aware of the still warm body lying next to his – driven back in a flurry of steel, weapons carved out of light whirling for an instant before joining their wielder. And he sleeps, the Armiger’s fading chimes the only proof the King of Light was ever by his side.

This is how his father and Clarus and Cor find him, a few minutes after the Marilith has fled back into the night: his head lolled to the side, illuminated by the burning car supposed to prevent the scene in front of them; his forehead free of blood; his strangely blank face, free of pain as he spirals down, down into the depths of his self.

As he sinks, his thoughts scatter like leaves on the wind, leaving behind only the cold certainty of fate and the hand he was dealt by this older him; somber, determined, and most of all, sad. He falls into the darkness, warm and accepting compared to the harsh and cutting light beating like a drum behind his eyes, leaving behind half smudged lines of _actionreactiondecision_ in its wake. He falls below even dreams, down into the chasm of shards and reflux, the place from which the Crystal was born, whole and empty.

It’s the only time he will ever see this place, and he is thankful for it. Everything down there is stark white and black, no soothing shades of grey to hide into, no way to turn his eyes away from the truth. This truth is Death, and it is the sole thing he will retain once he awakens on the moss-covered ground of a dream forest, where the worst things that await him are nightmares of glass and shadows and not the horror that hides in hearts both human and divine.

In this world, there is no need for a charm, for Carbuncle knows his own and welcomes Noctis with a chirp and a cold nose against his palm. Even if Regis, desperately trying to stave off the Scourge’s progress with what little divine magic remains in their line, does not know it, his son does not feel any pain as he follows the little Astral through the dream realm, plucking stars from the sky and holding fireworks in the palms of his hands. The nightmares that, in another life, would have stopped him from awakening do not stand a chance.

This far down, the echoes of the future are muted replicas of themselves, softened by sleep and by Carbuncle’s presence. Even the curse of foreknowledge cannot pierce the veil of holy magic that enshrouds them both, and Noctis will forever be thankful for this, for the only reprieve he will ever get in the years to come.

However, this fragile peace he enjoys as Regis and his retinue hurry to Tenebrae to beg for the Oracle’s help is broken when the Astrals make their appearance.

Titan is the weight of a mountain held back by the sole strength of his arms; Leviathan is salt and blood on his tongue, his inadequacy dragging him down into the depths. Beyond the horizon, fury, pure and true, burns hotter than the sun and brings to mind a blackened throne of skulls and bones while icy implacability dances just beyond the young prince’s reach; the final kiss, a torch extinguished. But the veil is soon pulled back into its proper place, the Archaean and the Hydrean barely disturbing it as they exit the fragmented world of Noctis’ consciousness.

Noctis still doesn’t know where this knowledge comes from, what he is meant to do with it, but the words of his older self linger on his mind. _No matter what_ , he thinks, _I won’t let this happen._

***

When he wakes up, seemingly hours after divine magic has teased and prodded at the patches of darkness he could _feel_ eating away at him in his sleep, he panics. The echoes are back with a vengeance, and his head pounds with their toll. His bandaged back, the lack of feelings in his legs, the weakness like a poisonous cloud ; all of it is familiar, and he pays it no mind, but the myriad of futures dancing just beyond his reach is _too much too fast._

To distract himself, he looks around the darkened room, at the drapes pulled over the large windows to block the light, at the wide bed he’s in, at the light sheets covering him, until he spots his father’s head resting on the edge of the mattress, pillowed on his folded arms. It surprises Noctis that he did not see him – king, father, dad, _dead_ – until then, did not hear his uneven breaths as his brows furrow in his sleep, exhausted as he is from the race against time.

Love rushes through him at the sight, and a smile slowly blooms on his face in spite of his wounds. He reaches for him, this man who loves him so, so much; tries to touch his disheveled head to reassure him that everything is fine, to smooth away the lines creasing his forehead like trenches. His fingers stop just short of his father’s hand however, but, painstakingly, inch by inch, he pushes himself up against the pillows to bridge the space separating them, marshalling the same strength that allowed him to face his own death staring back at him from slitted eyes. His breaths wheezes from between his clenched teeth as he does so, and it’s a testament to Regis’ fatigue that the pain-filled noises do not wake him up.

Regis’ skin, when he finally touches it, seems paper-thin under his fingers, blackened lines like smudged charcoal bleeding to life at the first brush of skin to skin in a parody of the healthy – if slightly pale – hue he can still discern if he squints and _twists_ his perception sideways in the way the crystal-filled world taught him. He barely has time to take in the sudden changes before red spreads across the immaculate white of the bed covers, a river whose source he refuses to seek out, his sleep-addled mind denying its presence until his pounding headache forces him to acknowledge it.

Slowly, numbly, he traces it back to his father’s missing finger, to the gaping wound in his torso made by a daemon-infused sword, its shape warped but still recognizable to the half-sight, half-feel sense the echoes afford him. The armour, intricate and resplendent, shimmering just below the bruised skin is the last straw. Noctis reels back, pulling his hand to his torso like a wounded thing, like he wishes he could hide his entire body from the premature signs of his father’s impending demise.

The second thing he learns is this: the echoes are merciless. They do not care about his feelings or his state of mind, do not care about his pleas or his screams of denial. His destined path is a worn one, and his future self’s footprints are vivid red on the untouched snow of his future, a trail he follows in spite of himself, a thousand of steps growing fainter as they lose themselves in the distance.

A bitten-off cry escapes him when the sharp movement _pulls_ at his yet unclosed wounds – “All the better to drain the poison from, my dear.” – and Regis’ head snaps up, ring held at the ready and eyes scanning for a threat. Shock and worry crosses his face as green meets fleeing blue, but before he can do more than open his mouth, a strong arm, a safe arm wraps around Noct’s shaking shoulders, taking care to avoid putting pressure on his back.

“Noctis—Noctis, look at me. What’s wrong?” Cor’s voice is deep and dark, rumbles comfortingly against his side where the Marshal has gently drawn him to as he settles on the edge of the bed. His fingers, warm and calloused, gingerly touch the side of the young prince’s face, afraid of accidentally hurting him yet seeking to turn his head, to meet his gaze and assess how the gentle awakening he had been watching from his guard near the door, unwilling to startle Noctis until he was fully awake in fear of worsening his condition, had turned into this mix of horror and pain.

The easing of Noct’s shoulders when Cor’s bulk partially shields Regis from his sight does not stay unnoticed by either men, but only the flash of hurt knifing across the royal’s face at his son’s action betrays it, his gaze questioning and even accusing as the Marshal turns his head just enough for their eyes to meet. Their silent exchange, honed across years and years of friendship and service, does not last long however. The sound that escapes Noctis’ mouth before he breaks down iis one they will never forget, a nearly silent whine full of hurt, not caused by the body but by the heart; the gut-wrenching kind that no one his age should know of let alone experience, akin to the one Regis let out the day Aulea had died and left him helpless to do anything about it.

Noctis was wrong, the echoes are not what break him. No, it is the care with which he is touched, the gentleness Cor thoughtlessly shows him, his father, alive and well and so very worried. It’s too much – after nearly dying, after staring his future in the face and seeing only death, after the light and the blood and the nightmares – and he bursts into tears; great, heaving sobs that nearly fold him in two as he grasps at Cor’s jacket and buries his face in the soft material of his shirt.

It’s as much comfort as it is avoidance, because Cor is _alive_ ; alive in the way Regis isn’t in the echoes’ eyes, and Noctis can’t face it, can’t look at his father and not flinch, not weakened as he is. So he focuses on Cor, worn and sadder and older to his senses but _there_ , on the even beats of his heart, on the arm hovering above his back in answer to his distress and on the large hand carefully sifting through his hair. He knows it must seem strange, how he avoids his father’s comfort in search of the feared Immortal’s, how he refuses to look at Regis in spite of his near-pleas, shaking his head and feebly clinging tighter to the leather jacket under his hands, but he doesn’t care.

This is what Tenebrae is for him in the end, a study in balance more than a convalescence.

Learning to act normally around his father when his end seems closer than ever; ignoring the flashes of fire in the corners of his eyes, the imaginary ash obscuring his sight; the flower of blood blooming from Luna’s middle and the chill Gentiana – Shiva, the echoes show him, Gentiana was but a mask discarded millennia ago  – leaves in her wake, her green-red gaze haunting. He does so with Cor always at his side, an ever-present shadow that burns brighter than everyone around them, his guiding star when the future is the only thing he can see and the path falters under his feet.

The Marshal had taken one look at his teary face, had listened to his tremulous request with patience and understanding – “Please don’t leave me alone.” – and not left him ever since. Standing guard by his bed as Regis used stories and jokes to lull him to sleep and repair the bond between them; out on the balcony of Luna’s rooms as the youngest of both royal families tentatively shared more of themselves; kneeling by his wheelchair and counting backwards from ten when panic or the echoes or both took hold of him and refused to let go. Noctis, at the tender age of eight, knows that Cor will always have a piece of his heart for this, for his unassuming kindness and his steadfastness.

Noctis does not speak much during that time, prefers short answers and hums that do not aggravate his ever-present migraine as he learns to walk this broken new world of his. The world can be influenced through either words or actions; and with his body as it is and his voice silenced, the ripples he creates are lessened, and with them the echoes he perceives. Yet, it is only a temporary solution, and does nothing to lessen the burden laid on his frail shoulders.

At first, any attempt at controlling this new sense he was cursed with leaves him pale and shaking, eyes wide and vague as his brain is bombarded with fragments of information he does not know how to categorize yet. Images of white-clad men and women and snatches of their haunting songs; glimpses of their darker counterparts – _blood of your blood,_ the world whispers around him – and the many weapons born from their line; and always, always the sight of his own back as he ascends the Citadel’s steps, the power of an entire world at his fingertips, chained to it as it is chained to him.

*

“That heart of flame was turned to ash once—a dead fire must burn no more; but the Chosen King of the Stone was never meant to be in its likeness. Taste again the chill wind of death; and sleep, O Pyreburner.”

*

Echoes was the right name for them, the young prince finds out. What he sees are not snapshots of another reality waiting a mere step to the left away, but reflections of reflections in a broken mirror, hints of what may come and what was done. Hunting for a specific outcome is akin to following the faintest traces of a beloved perfume as its owner ceaselessly moves from room to room, extinguishing the lights behind them at they do so. Yet, there is one thing he can always recognize no matter what, and it is himself. His own steps echo the farthest and come back to him twice as strong as any other’s, and in their wake come the lives of those closest to him.

This is how he learns of the grief and resentment his father has harboured since the day Noctis was presented and chosen by the Crystal, his furious curses at the Astrals and fate itself reaching forward in time as he holds Noctis’ hand in his and distracts him from the holy magic burning through him to purify the last traces of the Scourge. How he learns that Clarus hopes that Regis and him last as long as possible to spare Gladio the dull ache of seeing his king wither before his eyes and Noctis the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. How he learns that Cor’s right hand was broken in a flash of steel and carmine light many years before and that doubt tastes just as sharp as it did back then.

The last fact he gleans as Cor lays his hand, ice-cold with magic, on his forehead and gently leeches heat from his feverish body. Regis, Clarus and him had taken turns doing so at the Oracle’s prompting and at her insistence that coldness would help the healing process tremendously. Noctis doesn’t truly know if that’s the case – yet he does – but he enjoys the reprieve nonetheless and leans harder against the gloriously freezing hand covering his eyes.

The older man’s amused smile at his charge’s kitten-like nudges against his palm is whisper-soft against his closed eyelids, the impact of this small action lesser than any other echo until that point, and all the more precious for it. No one will remember that moment but them—and even then it might not be the case, but it still has _meaning_ to Noctis, and so that gentle ripple rolls through his mind in cleansing waves and leaves behind only the taste of salt and Cor’s delighted laughter at his first glimpse of the sea.

The ghost of his broken hand trickles almost painlessly in its wake, and the agony of it barely disturbs the stilled pond of Noctis’ thoughts.

“It shouldn’t hurt anymore.” Cor’s ministrations halt for a second before resuming, his surprise at his charge’s first words in several days shown only by the disturbances it creates.

“You’re right, with time and care, your back shouldn’t hurt for much longer; the Oracle made sure of it.” Cor soothes, drawing closer before folding one leg under him, his booted foot hanging just clear off the bed.

“No,” Noctis says, his smaller hand coming up to rest on the Marshal’s, “Your hand; it shouldn’t hurt after all this time.” The echoes swell in his mind as the words are released into the world before settling back, lulled to complacency once again.

A longer and more thoughtful pause follows, and Cor’s consideration drapes like a heavy blanket over Noct’s nearly shivering form. “Why do you say that, Noct?”

“You always flex it when you think nobody's looking, and you look at it like it’s not a part of you sometimes.” The last part is slightly softer, the child’s sleepy candidness faltering for an instant as he picks through and processes what is hidden by the calluses brushing against his skin.

“Very observant.” Noctis smiles at the approval lacing his tone and inwardly sighs in relief as the lack of anger – or worse, disbelief – he had been expecting. “And you’re right, it doesn’t hurt as much as when I was younger, but it still aches from time to time. It’ll probably be the same for you, once you get my age.”

The last of Noct’s tension unwind at the wry note and a surprised giggle escapes him. For a moment, he’s back in the Citadel just before they left, clinging to his dad’s hand and waiting impatiently for the cars to arrive. Already it feels like a lifetime away, but the happiness doesn’t fade, only mellows down to a simmer as he tugs Cor’s hand away from his eyes to look at him.

“You’re not _that_ old.”

“Just enough to feel like I’m a hundred sometimes, especially when your father’s involved.” the Marshal whispers down conspiratorially, eyeing the door like he expects Regis to burst through at the mention of his name.

Another giggle, muffled by Noct’s other hand, rewards his uncharacteristic – to anyone who doesn’t know _Cor_ that is – remark, and his own smile widens perceptibly. _It’s nice to see him laugh_ , he thinks with fondness aimed at the laughing boy still holding onto his hand.

“Then I’ll make it stop hurting so you don’t feel as old! I even asked Aunt Sylva and she told me she’d show me once I feel better.” He flinches a little as the gunshot-like feeling that tolls in his mind as soon as he speaks, but he forges on gamely until Cor’s next words fully distract him from the unpleasant sensation.

“Healing is a useful skill to have, and I’m quite sure Ignis will be happy to know that you took an interest in it.”

Noctis shushes him with a flap of his hand, as if his future advisor could hear them from the other side of the continent. “Don’t tell him that, he’ll try to make me learn more stuff!”

“Shall we make it a secret then?” The guardian says as he offers his rapidly warming hand to Noctis, who happily shakes it in spite of being unable to grasp at anything more than a few fingers.

“Deal! And maybe I can be as awesome as you and Dad and Clarus when I get really good at it!”

“I’m sure you will.” Not letting go of Noct’s tiny hand, Cor reaches up to pluck his beret from his head and places it on the prince’s. He stifles a snort when it slips down and hides the child’s inquisitive blue eyes from sight, though the pout that twists his lips as he stubbornly pushes it up again and again makes it difficult.

Looking up at laughing blue eyes, Noctis thinks that maybe, just maybe, the echoes are not as bad as he made them out to be, and paints the moment in vivid colours across his memories as a reminder that not everything is as bleak as it seems.

But in the end, Noctis does not start his lessons until he’s back in Insomnia, because Tenebrae—Tenebrae burns. Tenebrae always burns.

The third and final thing he learns is this: some things can never be changed. He just hopes that the fate he’s seen in those bright moments held between life and death is not one of them.


	2. holding on and letting go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some lessons are harder to learn than others. Unfortunately, pain is amongst the greatest teachers.

Insomnia is as different to Tenebrae as night and day and Noctis couldn’t be gladder about it. Surrounded by the Wall, the Crown City is an island of calm in a sea of chaos, the echoes muffled by the Crystal, the focal point of his entire line. But silence is...upsetting, after so long being bombarded by slivers of people and places’ past; their lives and loves, deaths and losses bared to him and the tender flesh of their hearts ripe for the picking.

The feelings those inspire in him are unnerving, and he doesn’t dwell on them: not on the hunger for _more_ as past and future unfurl before him and not on the disgust his ability to casually pick apart someone’s life and witness their most intimate moments fans inside of him. Yet, he keeps at it, keeps peeling apart the images and sounds and tastes the world brings him as well as the ones he seeks for himself, curls his tongue around the words better left unsaid to learn their shape and texture and when to keep them locked behind the cage of his teeth. Because not everything is as easy or as clear-cut as this small thing he admitted to Cor, the fractures Noctis has learned to ignore when he holds the Marshal’s hand, the tiny cracks he absent-mindedly follows—to soothe them or as a reminder, the prince still doesn’t know.

Some words stick in his mouth and refuse to leave, beat like a trapped hummingbird in his throat as the world twists and reshapes itself in his mind, bringing up death and despair as the outcomes of sharing what he learned, what he _could_ learn if he so wished. So he closes his mouth and smiles at his dad, at Clarus, and puts the thoughts aside for later, for a time where he may share them and not break his own world more than it already is.

But the thing is, it never happens around Cor. Whenever he tries to share or discuss whatever tidbit the echoes brought him that day, the waters he’s come to visualize them as briefly stir before settling back, seemingly soothed by something— _or someone_ , his own voice whispers in the depths of his mind. Nothing he could say, no matter how dire, brings out even a tenth as much violence as when he attempts it with the other people he calls his, the ones who had cared for his struggling body and soothed his ailing mind with their presence.

It doesn’t stop him from trying again and again, but each attempt leaves him a little sadder and a little quieter, until he learns to simply enjoy their presence and let the echoes pass him over as he does so, the simple fact that there are _there_ and _whole_ enough for him, especially after their hasty flight from Tenebrae’s fires and its hollow invaders.

Ever since then, Noctis has clung all the tighter to them, to Regis and Clarus and Cor whose lives he can hear and feel and see at all times if he but focuses, the ripples their every action leaves behind seeking him out as one they hold dear. Even if managing the constant influx leaves him constantly sleepy and listless, both of which they attribute to his injuries, he wouldn’t give it up for anything, not after the terrifying _blankness_ the magitek troopers and daemon-augmented soldiers forced upon their surroundings. With his new awareness of the world and the many ways it twists and turns, he had known immediately when Niflheim’s offensive was launched, the signs he kept seeing from the corners of his eyes coming together at last; much too late for him to do anything about it.

Around the MTs, the echoes are shadows of themselves, their metallic screeches as true in the past as they will be in the future, and they _hurt_ . He had never known that anything could feel as _wrong_ as they did, those marionettes of metal and red, red light, and yet—and yet.

The world loses definition around them, their screams drowning it out in their intensity and leaving him floundering in the subsequent darkness as the sense he’d just gained was stolen from him. _Never again_ , he vowed as he hid his face in his father’s neck, unable to look at Luna’s light being drowned by the scourge-darkness of the MTs and the hate-darkness of the twisted General.

Could someone wear such a thing and still be called human? Revulsion curdles in his stomach at the thought, and guilt rises just as quickly at the accompanying relief of not knowing it for himself, at his thankfulness for the veil of darkness hiding the state of the man from his sight and the Wall further dampening his echoes. If pressed, Noctis could only say that the General was indeed a man, shaped by fire and the shadows they throw off, the reality of it left behind in his mind like a half-healed wound by the savageness of his distorted screams.

He prays that they never meet again, for fate would not be kind to him in this instance; this he is sure of.

Those thoughts he leaves behind when the Citadel welcomes him into its embrace, its golden carvings and black marble closing around him protectively and further isolating him from the rest of the world.

Bitterness wells up at the idea of Citadel as _home_ , but plucking out the string of another’s thoughts – past, present or future – from his own is as instinctive as breathing by now, especially when it rings so false compared to the calm that fills him at the sight of the only place he knows to be his own. Spices and a warm kitchen, gruff kindness and a longing for home, sea and salt and steep cliffs to jump off of; a step to the right he might or might not take. The possibilities are woven so tightly together that he can’t quite see who the thought belongs to, but he doesn’t mind. He can’t know everything, and he doesn’t care to; such things are rarely free after all. As long as they have not entered his life yet, he won’t search for them, won’t risk the pain it might bring everyone later down the line.

It’s another one of the lessons Noctis will keep learning throughout his life: holding on and letting go.

Sylva’s kindness and her patient smiles as she invited him to Luna’s lessons in healing, answering his questions on how it felt to knit someone back together with the force of her will; watching Umbra and Pryna play in the sylleblossom fields with Luna and Ravus; the light dancing through the ancient trees towering above the mansion. Those he lets go, lets them turn to smoke and blow away in the wind, to be hunted and caught later when the wounds they left behind have scabbed over; always later.

Nothing is ever lost, not as long as one has enough will to search for it, and Noctis may be pitiful in some aspects – “What does a lowly, ephemeral speck know of All Creation!?” – but will is not amongst those, not with consequences of any misstep on his part dancing behind his closed eyelids each time his carefully maintained blankness falters.

 _Later, later, later, there will be times for regrets later,_ the same voice whispers, and he—lets it go. Focuses instead on the painful hope on his father’s face when he finally, finally answers him in more than one-word sentences for the first time since that fateful day, just after Regis wraps up another story as he waits for his son to get comfortable back in the Citadel’s familiar rooms.

“Goodnight, Dad.” He whispers sleepily, voice soft and sweet and carefully leashed in the semi-darkness of his rooms as Regis turns off his bedside lamp and pushes back Noctis’ bangs away from his forehead to lay one last kiss on his brow.

The King’s hand trembles slightly at the innocuous words, and his answering “Sweet dreams, Noct.” comes out choked, so thankful is he to hear his voice again, free and unrestrained—or so he thinks. This is one of the many white lies Noctis weaves to keep them happy, to soak up the blood that would dye those people he loves red to fit in with the marks he leaves behind; and he will never be sorry for it.

Ignoring the ruby-speckled path unwinding before him for a while longer, the prince sneaks his hand out from under the blankets it was tucked under and puts it, face up, on the covers. His father’s touch is tentative at first as he covers Noct’s palm with his, before the undeniable pulse beneath his fingers encourages him to curl his hand more securely around the fragile wrist offered to him and bask in the slowly recovering closeness between them. Noctis, for his part, holds onto him just as tightly and ignores the flashes of not yet remembered pain climbing up his arm from where the Ring glints coldly against his skin, its whispers kept at bay by Carbuncle’s magic as the Astral leads him down, down into the depths of his own dreams.

In spite of the pain and the sadness, some things are worth holding onto; always.

***

“Clarus? Really?” Regis smiles indulgently at Noct’s dubious tone even as the man in question rolls his eyes over the questioning stare moving back and forth between his oldest friend and him.

When the prince had asked once again for healing lessons after reaccommodating to life in the Citadel under Ignis’ careful guidance and with Gladiolus’ gruff concern at his back, he certainly had not expected his father’s Shield to be the one put forward as his teacher. His suspicions over the entire thing being a prank had amused his father to no end at the time, and even as the first lesson loomed closer, it had still not abated.

“Yes, Clarus.” he repeats patiently, leaning against the door of the little used rooms nestled amongst the shelves of the restricted part of the Library, protected by the Wise’s magic and only openable by one of royal blood.  “Who do you think patched us up when we got in trouble?”

Clarus switches his unamused stare from son to father at this and crosses his arms over his chest, silently judging both members of the line his family was sworn to protect. Even out of his customary council outfit, he still cuts an impressive figure, the muscles of his arms obvious under his button down shirt and the hard blue of his eyes piercing. His stance is made that much more impressive by his tattoos, standing out starkly against the white of his shirt and peeking from under his rolled sleeves. Noctis can’t help but look at them, imagining the time and care that went into their creation and how Clarus feels about the signs of his vow being hidden nearly at all times. _Though_ , the prince thinks, _maybe it’s not as much a sign of their vow as it is a reminder of what they must be._ Another tattoo, this one bisected by a thick line of scar tissue, flashes in his mind before fading.

“When _you_ got in trouble; we were just along for the ride. And someone had to, or either you or Cor would have ended up dead in a ditch a long time ago.”

“You wound me, old friend.” Regis answers teasingly with a wink to Noct, his hand coming to clutch at his chest theatrically. “Then, I hope Noct will learn enough from you not to repeat the same mistakes I did.”

“Yes, I will! I promised!” Noctis interjects at the mention of his name, fingers drumming on the table in his excitement. It’s the first time he’s been back in the Citadel’s library since his stay in Tenebrae and the amount of _stories_ whispering from the bookshelves surrounding them on all sides makes his fingers itch with the need to stack them around him and explore their contents; not with his eyes but with the time-sense he’s been honing at any and every moment of the day. But learning the thoughts and feelings hidden behind delicate ink and yellowed pages was not the only things he’d learned to do. Using his injuries as an excuse to keep prodding and unravelling the echoes – even as muffled by the Crystal as they are – moving back and forth across the seat of the Lucii’s power, he’d slowly discovered that there was _more_ to it than just echoes of times past and future; that if he followed the pull of his own blood back to its source, somehow, reality would become malleable under his fingers like that fateful day where he fell below even dreams. And this was how he discovered the Crystal’s Realm, as he had taken to calling it, the dimension lying parallel to theirs and from which his father and all the people with whom he shared his powers derived their abilities.

Accidentally pulling on the wealth of magic as he tried to understand its purpose and freezing his windows shut when it escaped his control was what changed his supposedly theoretical lessons to practical ones so quickly, especially seeing that he was _not_ supposed to be able to do more than phase until he reached at least the age of twelve, according to his father. Still, he can’t bring himself to feel guilty over the sad state his rooms were left in after his little experiment, except perhaps for Iggy’s horrified face when he ran in only to discover ice covering the walls, quickly followed by Cor who had left him by himself only because he feigned sleepiness. He loved them all, truly, but exploring his surroundings while keeping the echoes _out_ was yet too much for his recovering body.

Ever since that moment, the weight of all of the world’s potential has been a reassuring constant, a blanket he can drag around him when he feels to exhausted to go on, the Crystal’s heartbeats like the ocean’s slow push and pull in the realm where slumbers the soul of Eos.

“I leave you in Clarus’ capable hands, Noct. Let’s try not to have a repeat of that first attempt of yours, alright? I think neither Cor nor Ignis have stopped fretting since that happened.”

His amusement only grows when the only sign of contriteness Noctis shows at the reminder is a small duck of his head before the corner of his mouth twitches with restrained laughter and anticipation

“I’ll try!”

“That’s all I can ask. I will see you both later then.” A small wave of his hand and Regis is gone, his footsteps muffled by the plush carpet as he lets the door close softly behind him, the key to both the restricted section and the room where their lessons were to be held for the foreseeable future left hanging on the doorknob.

In the silence that follows the King’s departure, Clarus’ sigh is a pained and heavy thing, though Noctis knows that most of it is feigned as the smirk tugging at the Shield’s mouth demonstrates.

“So, healing.” the Shield starts as he turns towards his student, his eyes softening at the readiness to learn obvious in every line of the child’s body. It’s difficult to imagine him as the same boy who always complained about his lessons whether they be history or etiquette when he looks so intently at Clarus’ face, his arms having stopped drumming some time before Regis’ departure and now lying in his lap, “And I take it you don’t mean the creation of restorative items?”

A decisive shake of Noct’s head answers him.

“Very well, then” Clarus says before dragging a chair from its place under the large table at the center of the room to sit on the same side as Noct, entire body angled toward him and his face hard as he delivers his next piece. “But I will make one thing clear before we begin. Either you’ll learn how to heal right, or you won’t learn at all, is it understood? The slightest mistake could be fatal, and I won’t have either you or the one you’re trying to save haunted by this.”

His words ring with truth and concern to his young charge’s ears, and Noctis takes them to heart as the possible fate of his closest friends ascend to the surface of his thoughts before sinking once again.

“At the first lack of commitment on your part, we’ll stop and restart at a later date once you’re deemed ready.” the Shield continues undaunted, before settling back, satisfied at the lack of reaction on Noct’s part.

“First, we’ll go with a mix of theory and a very small amount of practical work until you can _reliably_ bring your magic to bear without getting the maids up in arms about the state of whatever room we decide to practice in.”

A raised eyebrow from the man’s part and embarrassment finally creeps up Noct’s neck and cheeks at the reminder of the maids’ dismay and the obvious – to him at least – way they had tried to brush it off in front of him. Though some of them were strangely pleased by the development, and he had gleaned the cause to be a certain “Ulric” whose name was mentioned in conjunction with the words “help” and “fire” several times as he was ushered out of his rooms, flanked by both of his very dedicated minders.

“The gardens?” the child suggests timidly, looking up at him through his lashes, his too-old-for-his-years facade dropping to reveal the kid Clarus used to carry on his shoulders while training the future Crowsguard, the boy who fell asleep against his side waiting for his father to wish him goodnight.

“A possibility to keep in mind, as long as we stay away from the flowerbeds. But that will be for later; now, let’s begin.” With this, Clarus gently takes one of Noct’s smaller hands in his battle-scarred one and brings magic to the surface, letting the child acclimate to the sensation and the particular vibrations of this brand of working.

“You’ll need anatomy knowledge in order to properly direct your power where it is most needed, but we can start with a general spell to get you used to it. Changing the nature of the magic will the most difficult thing for you, so follow what I do closely, alright?” Saying so, Clarus rolls up his sleeve and calls a knife to his hand and, before Noctis can react, slashes a quick horizontal line on his forearm. “Look.” Clarus urges as he calls power to the surface and dismisses his weapon in the same breath, slowing the spell’s working for his student to observe.

Intent sounds out like a clear note before the call of the Shield’s borrowed power even breaches the Crystal’s realm; and so Noctis is surprised by neither the knife nor the scarlet line rolling down to the rough hand still holding onto his. No, it is the play of light and songs boiling in Clarus’ veins that catches his attention, how the formless and shapeless power of the Crystal burns to golden life at his prompting, how reminiscent of Luna and Sylva’s power it is as it stitches the wound shut, encouraging cell growth and turning a process that would have taken weeks into a matter of seconds.

Smoothing a finger over the healed wound, uncaring of the blood that stains his fingers, Noctis marvels at the unbroken skin and the fading echoes of holy magic sparking against his own fledgling power in greeting.

This is the moment that cements his decision to heal instead of destroy, to turn the magic inside him into wings instead of the chain his future self saw it as. His fingers curl tighter in Clarus’ palm with the need to try his hand at the basic spell he’s just been shown, but first, because Noctis is Noctis in every world he can see—

“I know where Gladio got it from now.”

“Got what from?” Clarus asks as he gathers his blood into small droplets before it can reach the ancient wood of the table and incinerates them with a careful application of fire magic, a practice he started decades ago when blood magic was common and used to wage war amongst the nobility; one of the first practices Regis shut down once he became king.

“You always say he’s too reckless, but you just—cut your arm open without a second thought.” Seeing his unimpressed stare, the child backtracks, “I mean, I got what you meant thanks to it, but, I don’t know, wouldn’t a papercut or something have worked for a first try?”

“You really _are_ just like Regis, aren’t you?” This time, the sigh is just as fond as the memories Noct’s innocent remark bring up. “To answer your question, it would have been too small for you to feel the spell at work. And seeing that you will be mainly practicing on me, it’s easier to get you used to it right now.”

“I can only practice on you?”

“Me, or anyone else with sufficient control—who doesn’t mind being used as a training dummy, of course.”

“How about Dad? Or Cor? It won’t be a cut, but…”

The Shield softens at this, guessing the intention behind the child’s hesitant words. “You’re a good kid, Noct.” He says as he ruffles the bowed head of black hair, the lines around his eyes lightening when blue eyes meet his.

“But first, you’ll have to get to it to work on me. Now, I’ll do it one more time and it’ll be your turn to try.”

***

“Do I even want to know how you got in here?”

“Probably not.” Noctis answers, not looking up from the anatomy book held open in his lap as he settles deeper into the surprisingly comfortable cushions of Cor’s sofa, nearly lost amongst the books, plants – “You can’t have just a desk and a chair, Cor!” – and reports covering all the available surfaces of the Marshal’s office. As usual, the older man is a pillar of stillness to his senses and it is as easy as ever to trace his progress through the room even while engrossed in the new material Clarus gave him the day before to study.

“You’re taking your lessons as seriously as ever, I see.” the Marshal says once he has navigated through his tropical jungle of an office, courtesy of Weskham during his last visit, when Noctis was barely a year old. The leaves still remember the warm voice that spoke to them as they were moved by their caretaker to a new home, and they echo it back to Noctis in timeless whispers as the Immortal’s legs brush against them.

Noctis carefully marks his page before looking up at the closeness of Cor’s voice, grinning at the still bemused look on his face as he considers how exactly his charge got into his locked office. Said charge brushes off the wordless question with an impish smile and a mock-whisper of “Magic.” before patting the seat on his left in invitation.

“I am! We’re moving to status effects now, though I won’t get to try the spells until much later.” the prince says as the older man strips out of his jacket and throws it in the direction of his office chair before sitting down next to him. As Cor toes off his boots with a relieved sigh, Noctis shifts until his back is to the armrest and both his legs are curled to his chest, his book lying momentarily abandoned on the floor next to his own shoes. The moment the older man fully leans back, Noct sneaks his sock-clad feet between his thighs and the leather of the couch, a move which Cor facilitates by obligingly lifting his legs just enough so that the prince can make himself comfortable. The thoughtless and familiar action warms his heart, just as much as the Immortal’s closed eyes and bared throat as he leans his head back against the cushions. Cor never allows himself to appear vulnerable in front of anyone except for a select few, and knowing that he is one of them is—special; _humbling_.

This is why he doesn’t feel bad when he stretches to grab the little case he’d stashed behind the cushion at his back before settling in to wait for its owner—after taking it out of the locked drawer dedicated solely to hiding it; _thank you Clarus for the precision exercises_. Eyes still closed, Cor’s head turns in his direction when the soft noise of the case clacking open reaches his ears before a finger poking gently at his cheek prompts him to open them. His half-lidded and bleary stare questions Noct as he tilts his head down to look at him, but his only answer is the glint of a smile before the child’s determined face comes sharply into focus, the slight pressure on the bridge of his nose telling him exactly what Noct had been up to.

“You’ll never get used to your glasses if you don’t wear them.” Sweet as honey, the boy’s expression does not waver when faced with the Immortal’s raised eyebrow, a feat that not many could claim—but a usual occurrence for the prince, to everyone’s dismay.

As time had gone on, he had regained much of the vigor that characterized him before the incident, if not tempered by the weight he’d borne on his shoulders since that day, characterized by small periods of absence or a sometimes increased need for solitude. Between the physical therapy to regain his previous strength and agility and the apparent nightmares that still plagued him however, no one thought too hard about those changes and let him be most of the time; a fact for which he is thankful, especially when they discovered that Noctis’ wounds were healing fast—abnormally fast even. It was chalked up to his studies of white magic under Clarus’ tutelage, but he is still not sure to this day.

More than the echoes he perceives, he is sometimes...malleable, more so than any human should be and in ways he barely understands. On the verge of sleep, he is not _Noctis_ anymore, but _What Noctis Could Be_ , his mind unstuck from his body and left adrift in the timestream. Oracle, Emperor, Witch, Thief and many more besides; he is all of them and none of them in those moments, and his body changes ever so slightly to equal them, finding in them a template that it tries to match; two mirrors reflecting each other into infinity. Sometimes it’s a slight darkening of his skin where a scar would be in another world, or an ache that fades away the next day, but most of all, it is his back and spine hastening their recovery to match the functionality of men – all of them him – twice his age, their own scars like banners scrolling down their backs.

Maybe, with time, he could call that effect at will, heal himself beyond the scope of his own abilities and _learn_ from those not-yet-hims, but the thought floats away every time he wakes; _later, later, later,_ he whispers to himself as he drifts off each night.

He doesn’t mind the unwitting changes to his body, not if it makes it easier to bear the pain and smile for the ones who are so very worried for him when his back _aches,_ when the thought of getting up is worse than death; and show their support in little ways that never fail to lighten the weight on his shoulders.

Ignis suggesting a break in their studies to look for tomes describing magic of old, Gladio taking him and Iris out for ice cream, his father carrying him to the Regalia in his pyjamas for a night drive to the parcs nearing the Wall; all of those moments spent with them he cherishes, and works all the harder to be deserving of.

But it’s not to say that he categorizes his life in pain and reprieves from it, far from it in fact.

There are the mornings spent watching and sneaking tastes as Ignis tries his hand at baking, legs swinging above the floor from his perch on the counter which the staff carefully ignores; the training sessions where Clarus sometimes lifts both Iris and him up to drop on Gladio’s back where they’ll spend the rest of it encouraging him to beat his previous record; his father’s laughs as he wheedles knife tricks out of Cor with wide blue eyes and a soft “please”.

That little ritual of theirs Cor obviously has in mind, because he does not even bother asking about the hows and whys of Noctis’s knowledge of his failing sight and just summons a butterfly knife to his left hand, opening and closing it mindlessly as Noctis resettles himself so he can lean against his side instead of the armrest.

“I truly thought I had left this habit behind a long time ago.” Cor says as he returns to his previous position, head leaned back and eyes closed. Only his slightly wrinkled nose, almost like a disgruntled cat’s, betrays his discomfort at the added weight on the bridge of his nose which he channels into more intricate twists of his knife.

Noctis hums distractingly in answer, mesmerized by the casual deadliness displayed in front of him and changes his plans to ask Cor to teach him from _later_ to _some time this week._

“Just like I thought you would stop surprising me, and yet.” A tug on his right hand makes him open his eyes and relinquish it to Noct’s hold, watching as each of his fingers are stretched out so his palm lays flat against his thigh.

“I already told you it was a secret.” the healer-in-training mutters as he starts tracing Cor’s larger fingers with his own, his touch featherlight as he sends probes of magic to check for any additional damage that may have have been wrought during Cor’s week-long mission.

The feeling is a familiar one by now, and his attention on his own magic and how it reacts to Noct’s is lessened; nothing compared to the careful scrutiny of his first steps into healing, Clarus’ advice of not letting his fledgling magic affect his “patients” too much kept carefully in mind. But nothing had happened, except for an increase in his hand’s mobility which the Crownsguard had not ceased bemoaning ever since. Now, Cor feels secure in letting him explore a little more, feel out the hairline fractures and the scars still marring his palm from that time.

“And haven’t I been a good secret-keeper?” he can’t help but tease, his face carefully blank when narrowed and considering eyes look up at him, searching his face for any hidden meaning.

Seemingly satisfied, Noctis goes back to focusing on the Marshal’s hand, turning it over to get at the scar tissue marring his wrist and palm, “That’s true...But it still didn’t stop Iggy from learning about it!”

“It’s no fault in mine if _you_ told him.”

Noctis’ retort dies on the tip of his tongue when his exploration hits _something_ hidden in Cor’s scars. Without the barrier of his magic limiting what he can do, he can delve deeper, bring his senses to bear as he soothes damaged nerve endings and seeks out irritations. The leashed blue of Cor’s power brushing against the gold of his, he expects; but not the flashes of bright carmine interspersed through it.

They are not doing anything as far as he can see except the fact that they are— _there_ , nestled in Cor’s palm along the lines of his fractures, dug deep into his flesh, both physical and spiritual. Tentatively, he prods them with more of the Crystal’s power – raw this time and not the subtle gold of white magic – only for them to stay completely inert, unmoved by his attempts to deduce their origins and effects. Seeing no other solution, Noctis reluctantly undoes the shields he limits his perception with while attempting delicate work and lets himself go.

Worried about the heavy and abrupt silence, uncharacteristic of his interactions with Noct, Cor dismisses his knife and lays his left hand on his shoulder, shaking him a little. “Noct? Are you alright?”

As soon as they touch however, Cor’s scarred hand _throbs_ in remembered pain, fingers curling crookedly against his palm, undoing all of Noctis’ careful work and snapping all the golden threads linking them together. His breath hisses out between his teeth as he stomps down on the urge to curl around his hand to focus on his charge, who still has not said a word.

But when he pulls him away from his side to look at him, pain and words held back behind the cage of his teeth, Noct’s head lolls to the side, eyes half-lidded and glowing _red, red, red_.

*

“It is not your time yet, young King.”

Noctis comes to wheezing and hacking at those words, with rocks digging into the side of his face and an insistent buzzing in his ears. _Where am I? What happened? Why am I here?_ the questions circle his mind like sharks, tearing chunks out of his ability to string thoughts together with each go, tearing down the careful walls he spent months raising to protect himself.

Try as he might, he has no strength to lift himself up, and even less to struggle when unfamiliar hands, gauntleted and _sharp_ , close around his shoulder and waist to tug him up in one easy movement.

 _White_ , he thinks faintly when he comes to rest against an armoured chest, his head lolling against the cold metal in search of relief from the insistent beating against his temples. Sighing, he presses his cheek against the plastron and tries to focus on the pale material obscuring his sight and whipping against his face.

As he stares at those white, white strands dancing in the wind, he sees images of a red-haired man and his retinue: a red-eyed warrior as sturdy as stone; a woman as pale and lovely as winter; two birds that are not, one white and one black. Blood on his tongue and smoke in his hair, betrayal and regret, tar-black blood and divine light.

The onslaught only stops when a hand wraps around his eyes and leaves him in the darkness, his only companion the hiss of a sword pulled out of its sheath.

“You are from home, young King—it is no place for a soul such as yours.” the man – man? spirit? – says calmly, unbothered by the dizzy child in his arms. He feels made from metal and stone against Noctis’ fragile body, the only hint of softness to be found in the way he shields him from the echoes of his past.

 _Where am I?_ the prince thinks again, his muddled thoughts attempting to pull themselves back together into a coherent shape.

“A place which no soul but one has ever left.”

_What happened?_

“You have chosen, young King, even if you may not know so.”

_Why am I here?_

“Because you have been marked, and the blood price must be paid.”

_Blood price?_

“It is not to I that it is owned, but you shall pay it nonetheless, young King; and for that, I am sorry. Great suffering and even greater rewards await you, but you must endure. Do so, and the price shall not be one you regret.”

Each of his questions are answered as soon as his tired mind formulates them, the words pushing through the awful din to finally be released into the world where this man of a thousand blades plucks them out of the air like a dagger in flight.

_I don’t understand_

“You will.”

For a moment, Noctis is tempted to ask more, but a particularly vicious spike of his headache dissuades him, and he returns to being a limp doll in the warrior’s arms.

“Your Shield awaits.” the man says, timeless patience only moved by the child’s potential demise, rearranging the prince slightly to free one of his arms, the other one now both covering his eyes and holding his head against his armoured chest. With a touch of metal to the palm of Noctis’ right hand, carmine flowers – sweat and blood and a day spent battling –  bloom, intertwining with the blue pathways of his own power before taking root and sinking deep below his skin. “A Shield’s weapon belongs to their King, and it is only right for you to wield it as well.”

“Now go forth, and remember: a king is only as strong as his subjects.”

The Lucii whose lives Noctis holds in his veins stir at this, refuting his claims with memories of their line, of bearing their entire nation with the sole weight of their arms and tearing through battlefields, be they political or flesh and blood, on their own. But the man stays as deaf to their cries as he was to the wishes and aspirations of the previous wielders of all the blades he now call his. With a twist of his power, sovereign in his domain, he smothers them, mute their indignation and returns Noctis to the peaceful darkness, broken only by the buzzing that has not left him since he awakened.

He tries to ignore it, tries to burrow back into the cold and sterile silence where nothing hurts, but it is ceaseless, continues pricking at his awareness with increasing frequency.

But it’s only when his hand lights up in red and gold, threads coming to life and losing themselves in the distance that he realizes— _Oh, that’s Cor_. Cor whose voice gets more and more urgent as he refuses to wake; Cor whose eyes crinkle with pain instead of laughter as his hand pulses in time the red blooming from Noct’s palm. Cor who anchors his spirit as he drifts through time.

Noctis reaches for his stillness and _pulls_ and—

*

He awakens for the second time with a gasp, nearly hitting Cor – perched over him and hands alight with magic – in his haste to get up from the sofa where he had been laid down.

“Noctis, your eyes…” the Marshal breathes out, stunned by the change from soft blue to harsh and cutting red, so reminiscent of the MTs he had spent the week battling. He reaches unthinkingly for them, afraid of finding cold metal beneath the pale skin of Noctis’ brow. But when his finger brushes against the corner of Noct’s eyes, the child _flinches_ from him, drawing back against the cushions to put as much distance between them as possible. Stricken, the man pulls back immediately, but the damage is already done.

Alarmed by the sudden influx of _timeplacesevents_ after his time in the metal-filled silence of the swordsman’s realm _,_ the prince draws back into himself, pulling on every link binding him to _now-and-then_ in a desperate attempt to rebalance himself.

This new link of his, wrought in blood and steel, does not care for the intent behind his actions however, only takes in the pain and desperation and hums to life in a shower of crystal, its call echoing in the vastness of the Crystal’s Realm.

Unnoticed, Cor’s scarred hand curls shut before the pain abruptly evens out, so shocked he is when Kotetsu materialises in Noct’s arms, forcing them away from his body where he had curled them to fruitlessly make a smaller target. The strain of calling a weapon for the first time is enough to snap him out of his distress, especially with how viciously the blade sings for blood, to tear into whatever forced him to summon it from its second wielder’s arsenal.

Their eyes meet over the black and silver sheath, clutched awkwardly to the child’s chest, its straight line a divider between the two of them. Noctis, dwarfed by it, looks even frailer, or he would if not for the steeliness in his eyes, bolstered by the tangible reminder that he is not crazy, that what he sees is real; unlike what the little voice at the back of his mind had him been repeating since his first awakening. Even separated by a few feet, Cor can’t help but notice how closely the gleam of his weapon’s jewels matches Noctis’ eyes.

Blood still sticky-sweet on his tongue, the memories of a time millenia past filling his lungs like incense smoke, the young king foregoes word and reaches instead, following the insistent tug of the blade he holds, singing sweetly of duty and destruction. As gently as he had soothed pain, Noctis breaches that pillar of stillness and let the sights and sounds echoing in his mind well up and overflow, their strength restrained to preserve the sanctity of Cor’s mind even as he gives him a taste of – what he is – what he can do.

“You shouldn’t tell anyone,” Noctis says sadly, watching Cor bury his face in his hands, knocking his glasses to the ground in process, and slide down to the floor, side leaning against the couch as memories, most of them his own, bombard him while the ghost of Noct’s swordsman waits in the wing, “it never ends well.”

Kotetsu disappears soundlessly at the prince’s dismissal after one last glance at its sheath, its silver ornaments leaving their imprints on his palms from how hard he clutched them. Now that they are connected, he feels it slotting back into Cor’s arsenal, awaiting its next summoning and burning bright red, beating in time with the pulses of his hand.

Noct smothers the urge to touch Cor as he slides down from his perch and puts on his shoes before padding away, leaving the man time and space to absorb what transpired between them and the enormity of the secret he has been hiding for months.

The future branches before his very eyes as he picks his way through the plants standing between him and the door: either Cor would accept it – him – and share his burden, or he would not. He knows better by now than to word his wish however. Instead, he lets it float in vague images in the pool of his mind until such a time that it is blown away, or sinks into the depths.

Noctis has learned a lot since the Marilith’s attack: how to accept pain and move on, how to pretend to be fine when he’s really not, how to heal cuts and break down scar tissue, how to look at the future and not flinch. But he still has a long way to go, and many more lessons to ink onto his soul. The world is still a mysterious place to him, and its people just as much.

He can’t fathom the loyalty he’s seen displayed to him in the future, the respect and bone-deep belief in Gladio’s and Ignis’ and Prompto’s eyes; doesn’t understand how he could ever be worthy of it. He tries each day to be someone they can rely on, but he always falls short. That’s why he doesn’t know that Cor already made his decision a long time ago, that he’s just reeling from the echoes of sadness and despair – _Noct’s_ sadness and despair – that surround the brief glimpses he pushed through the barrier of his mind. That not even the future he’s seen and all the terrible paths it could take will stop him from standing by Noct’s side.

But Cor can’t say it out loud, can’t make Noctis _know_ , not yet, and the sound of the door closing behind him is loud in the fragmented silence left in the wake of his departure, broken only by the rustling of leaves against each other.

 _Tonight_ , the Marshal decides as he presses the heel of his palms against his eyes, _I’ll talk to him tonight._

But he won’t get the chance to.

Here is another thing Noctis doesn’t know: the second assassination attempt happens nearly a full year after the first one.


	3. growing pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sword and a price—but is Noctis willing to pay it?

Noctis doesn’t realize he is crying until the door locks shut behind him. Silent and fast, tears track down his face in clear rivulets that sting his now blue eyes, not stopping even as he desperately tries to dash them away. And that’s when the reality of the situation hits him.

He could lose Cor, lose Clarus and his dad and all the people he’s trying so hard to _change_ things for, to change _himself_ for. His father’s broken body, betrayed; Clarus pinned like a wingless butterfly; Ignis’ sightless eyes; Gladio’s scarred chest. They all come to him in waves, his mind spiralling down into itself, the calm his talks with Cor usually leaves him with ripped to shreds by the unexpected encounter and Kotetsu still beating like a second heart at the edge of his awareness. All of the possibilities build up onto themselves until they are a great maelstrom raging through him, throwing into disarray all of his carefully built walls and forcing all of the timelines together when he had carefully separated them during his convalescence.

 _Too much, too much, too much, I can’t do this anymore,_ he thinks before _bolting_ down the hallway of the Crownsguard Headquarters, trying to leave behind his thoughts at the same time as the image of Cor, cradling his head in pain because of _him_. But it is seared in his mind, just like every single thing he’s experienced since that fateful moment where he was saved from the Marilith by himself, this sadder and older version of him with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He doesn’t look at where he is going, ignores the worsening twinges of his back as his nerves are set aflame by the abrupt flex and bunch of his muscles, so different from the slow buildup he had become accustomed to since his return to Insomnia and the physiotherapy sessions Cor – or Clarus when the former was unavailable – faithfully accompanied him to when possible. The physical pain, contrary to the weight it usually is, focuses him this time, distracts from the emotional storm still brewing in his mind as he lets his feet take him where they would. The stiffness of his back, the tenderness of his muscles, the uncontrolled surge of golden magic he floods them with to keep himself going; they almost overtake the ripples raging through him, and he is viciously glad for it.

Relying on the echoes’ constant feedback to orient himself, Noctis weaves through the throng of men and women dedicated to keeping his father and him safe, ignoring their startelement when they recognize him as their prince and not stopping even as they call after him. His feet are light, lighter than they should be as he dances through them, phasing when he cannot squeeze through, blue and red shadows left in his wake.

Noctis is a flood, Noctis is a black hole, pulling at the Crystal and the very magic in the air and in his veins to fuel his flight, uncaring of what this may wrought _for once_. He is so very tired of minding everything and everyone, of trying to minimize his impact on the world when the knowledge of his role in its survival digs deeper into his breast every day, spreads icy tendrils through his veins and _wrenches_ when he least expects it. So, at least for a few minutes, he allows himself to consider everything not him an enemy, to let out the beasts and monsters he could be if he let himself, if the circumstances were right.

Kotetsu hums viciously in the back of his mind, remembering its fiery wielder who had refused  to let the world crush him before being broken and remade; its dutiful wielder who had never stopped waiting, deaf to prayers and wishes alike. Even this, the boy – not prince, not a prince in those moments – swallows down greedily, steel and blood lining his hungry mouth, lining his broken spine; swallows the cherries and their pits alike, the sweetness and the poison so he may die with a smile on his lips.

 _I am,_ Noctis thinks faintly, _not okay. And I don’t care._

There is, he finds, a particular joy in contemplating the downfall of everything he’s worked so hard to build, and that’s another thing he didn’t know—wished that he had never learned. A laugh bubbles out of him without his say-so, because— _because._

He feels unhinged, his own self scattered across time and space without an anchor – because this is what Cor is, his anchor, the one who calls him to the path when he strays too far – to come back to. And so, he sees nothing wrong with blasting one of the windows lining the corridor open with a gale of wind, his body and magic guided by the memories of having done so a thousand times, before hosting himself onto the sill, purposefully clenching his right hand around the broken glass still attached to the frame. Blood beads across his hand, smears along his palm in a parody of the warm oranges and pinks of the setting sun that greets him when he looks out over his line’s domain, now reduced to a single city when it was once a whole continent. As he thinks this, a clamor rises in his mind and he stretches his left hand in preparation for—something, his body following cues he is unaware of, mind spread thin in an attempt to contain his selves spilling out of him like a broken faucet.

A twinge of annoyance breaches his borrowed composure when the Armiger – oh, so that’s what he was doing – does not answer to his call, the buildup of energy faltering at the last second, nearly within his reach, before dissipating back into the ether. He nearly bites his lips in frustration at the lack of results, the open air taunting him with freedom, a few inches from where his shoes rest as he crouches on the ledge. Instead, he focuses his tenseness and impatience into the search for a weapon, _any_ weapon, to use; to get as far, far away as possible.

But he only has access to a limited number of blades, and all of them Cor’s: Kotetsu, humming and lethal; Kikuichimonji, sturdy and as true as any arrow; and the myriad of knives Cor accumulated throughout his life, his growth laid out in shining steel and leather.

Without a second of hesitation, he summons the smaller blade, carefully ignoring the fact that while Kotetsu is what Cor forged himself into, Kikuichimonji is what he _is_ ; the blood spilled on its edge after its forging still remembering his steadfastness and the razor-sharp conviction which beats in his chest even now. The hilt is heavy in his palm as he hefts it, fingers aligning in the grooves left behind by repeated use in the leather wrappings—but...it’s not a bad thing, not really; it almost feels like a tether, stopping him from flying away on the wind like a large part of him desperately wants to. Guided by the ghost of Cor’s fingers on his, Noctis throws the blade into the air with a flick of his wrist and admires the perfect half-circle its point describes before catching it, his hand wrapping loosely around the razor-sharp edge, echoing a movement done and redone until it reached perfection, blood sliding down the sword to soak into the wrapped hilt.

Lost in contemplation for a moment, a lull in the storm, Noctis tightens his grip on the wakizashi, unaware and uncaring of his worsening wounds, as he looks down at the sprawling grounds of the Citadel. Unbeknownst to him, his steps had been carefully guided to the back of the building, where the Citadel’s marble and grandeur were replaced by an immense garden a long time ago at the hands of the Rogue Queen, who sought solace amongst the green leaves and fountains she had installed in the maze that now bore her name. In another world, there is no garden, but another secret passage leading out of the city, one that this world’s prince always used in spite of his father’s repeated attempts to stop him from doing so. But for _Noctis_ , the garden will do just as well to be alone, to recenter himself and delay the inevitable a little bit longer.

So lost is he in his thoughts that he doesn’t realize that one of his pursuers has caught up to him until a hand clamps down on his shoulder in an attempt to pull him back to safety. A boy forged by the fire of his hometown and tempered on the battlefield; this is the impression he gets before breaking the hold with a savage shrug, eyes glowing like a bonfire and teeth bared at the shocked Glaive – barely a man, really – who snatches his smoking hand back, the aftermath of Noctis’ uncontrolled fire spell clear in the melted remains of his glove. His surprise does not last long however and icy blue eyes sharpen with intent, his reservations about not startling the prince evidently thrown out of the window at his reaction, but it’s already too late.

Noctis lets himself fall forward, his last glimpse of the Glaive his wide eyes before they turn pitch black, their light stolen temporarily by this new spell Noctis plucks out from the void between worlds, this time from a merciless king bathed in blood.

 _Blind_ , he whispers into the depths of the Crystal Realm, _Mute;_ the words gathering power as they travel further and further away until they hone in on their target, the time between incantation and action rendered null and void by the barrier separating the two realms. His spell ripples out from the first point of impact – this man of wolf-blood and fire – and progressively spreads through the entirety of the hallway he had just travelled through, each new person it touches falling victim to it; oh how easy it all falls apart.

With the only people with any chance of catching him blind and cut off from his father’s magic, Noctis allows himself to enjoy the freefall for the duration of a heartbeat before twisting his body in the air, gathering momentum and unleashing it in an underhand _throw_ that sends his borrowed weapon flying in the direction of the maze, spinning round and round. For that moment, suspended in time, Noctis is deaf and blind to everything but the light reflecting off the blade, the ever changing colours a perfect representation of his life; a thousand possibilities held on the edge of a knife. And he disappears amidst sparks of blue.

He doesn’t hear the horrified screams and gasps of the staff below him; of the maids who find his shyness endearing; of the gardeners who he asks questions to during his daily walks with Clarus; of the arriving kitchen hands who always sneak him and Ignis treats when no one is looking.

No, Noctis doesn’t hear any of this, because he is _flying_. His body breaks apart along minuscule fracture lines he wasn’t aware of until this very moment and passes the divide between realms, dancing on the boundary between material and immaterial and moving at the speed of light. He is weightless, fearless, intangible like smoke and starlight and all the beautiful things he wished he could grasp with both hands but cannot. If it was possible for this not-body of his, he would cry again, for being given the gift of freedom, only to see it taken away just as fast. Because it is over as soon as it began, and his awakening is a rude one.

Disoriented by his abrupt emergence from the Crystal Realm, Noctis is unable to control his landing, fingers brushing against Kikuichimonji’s hilt before he goes tumbling across the grass, wet from the dew gathering as the sun slowly dissapears. His fingers dig into the wet earth as he seeks to stop himself from hitting the fountain he had warped so close to, the child peeking from behind the warrior for an instant because he _doesn’t want to hurt anymore_. For all of his power, he is reduced to scrambling on the unforgiving ground and breaking off his nails to avoid the unnecessary pain of his battered spine meeting the black-veined marble of the bowl, chosen a long time ago to match the Citadel’s grandeur.

It is _galling_.

The thought infuriates him somehow, his mind torn wide open and picking up on the echoes of the ones who had patrolled the very same earth a few hours ago, and he snaps. Power spills out of him uncontrolled, weaving itself into being out of sheer fury, and sinks deep into the earth as Noctis’ recovery is but a few inches away from being set back to the beginning—and the fountain _splits_ , localized tremors tearing apart foundation and plumbing alike, destroying a relique of times past.

The boy skids to a stop atop the bare earth revealed by the copied spell, water raining down on him from the broken canalisations. And finally, finally, his franticness settles down, evens out into the familiar drag of despair, leaving him pale and shaking in the coming night, seemingly the only one alive amidst a dream of green and blue. This impression is broken however when the scuff of a shoe against rock sounds out from his left.

From the corner of his eyes, the characteristic white and black of a maid’s dress moves toward him, her apron standing out starkly in the falling darkness as she picks her way across the destroyed clearing. Why she is here, how she found him so quickly when he made sure to warp close to the center of the maze, why he hasn’t felt her coming; none of those thoughts register as he watches her bend down to pull Kikuichimonji from the undisturbed earth around it in a slow and graceful movement, his red eyes reflected back at him in the polished metal.

“You shouldn’t leave your belongings lying around, Your Highness; someone could get hurt.” She says in hushed tones, mindful of his stony face as she resumes her approach, blade held carefully away from her as she does so. Noctis does not answer and uses what little remains of his strength to push himself onto his back, blinking sedately to clear the water from his eyes—and to hide his tears as they start falling again with no rage or madness to keep them at bay. The cool grass against his back, the water caressing his face, the Wall glinting above him; his world narrows down to those few elements, the rest scattered around him like puzzle pieces; ones that he is in no hurry to put back together.

The swish of her dress as she kneels by his side disturbs his hastily made peace, just as her soft hand carefully taking one of his injured ones in hers to examine it does. Gently, she leans over him, drawing his hand up with her absent-mindedly as she traces his features in search of other injuries, Cor’s blade held steady in her lap. _She’s probably going to make me get up_ , he thinks somewhat dejectedly, his feelings slotting back into their proper place now that he’s settled down, the thought of his father’s disappointment at the ruckus he’s caused looming closer by the second. Still, he tenses his back and grips her hand in preparation, gritting his teeth at the flashes of agony rippling up and down his spine.

Her quiet smile does not change at the wordless sign of acquiescence and that’s when he realizes: he can’t feel her— _he can’t feel her_.

And as the realization hits, she slams his hand above his head and pins it in place in a flash of Cor’s sword, driving it down until the hilt is flush with his palm. A choked-off gasp escapes him at the sudden pain, a noise that seems to only delight her more, her smile breaking off at the edges and her brown eyes gleaming darkly, matching the embers of his own gaze.

“And little boys shouldn’t be out this late.” His left hand comes up to ward her off, already sparking with magic, but she catches it just as easily as the first and inflicts the same fate onto it, slamming it down next to the first one, once, twice to force him to dispel the power it’s built up before ripping the blade from his flesh in a disturbingly smooth display of strength. She does not leave him the time to even attempt to capitalize on his freed hand before the two bloody appendages are brought together and skewered once again, her smile widening at his pitiful whimpers, his lungs struggling to draw in air beneath the knee she digs into his chest.

Mind strangely clear even as his body struggles against his assailant, he catalogues all the little details he had been blind to until she was too close to do anything about it: the mechanic curl of her lips; the strange blankness of her face; the plating he can guess at under the skin of her neck; the hungry silence that emanates from her, deadening his senses and dragging him closer to the waiting darkness.

“You made it so easy for me, I didn’t even have to isolate you!” she exclaims cheerily, the remains of whatever personality she had before her repurposing shining through, completely at odd with her fixed stare as she digs a vial and a syringe out of her apron, “Now to get you out of here.”

Noctis starts struggling in earnest when he understands what she intends to do, but the knee on his chest presses down until he can’t afford to both breathe and move at the same time.

“Sorry in advance, can’t have you alerting anyone, you know? I hope you don’t hold it against me.” With a practiced motion, she flicks off the vial’s cap and plunges the needle in the membrane covering it, filling it up with a deceptively clear liquid, “One dose and you’ll be out like a light. And thankfully, I have more in case I... _miss_.”

As she flicks the syringe several times to make sure no air bubbles remain inside, the echoes die down one by one, possibilities narrowing to a few precise set of choices the longer he waits to act, the longer he stays helpless beneath her. One of them is a pretend monster made to believe he isn’t human, and the words he repeats to himself every day toll in his mind:

_don’t let them hurt you, even if you have to hurt yourself even more that they would have to do it._

They echo louder and louder and louder as the—thing above him leans down, needle pointed straight at his eye and getting closer by the second; “You won’t need those for a while anyway, so might as well see what it’s going to do to you. I’m sure they won’t mind me having fun as long as you’re in one piece.”

Even through the deadly darkness blanketing her, the dissonance between her thoughts and actions is obvious to him, and he glimpses for a second a brilliant yet twisted mind at work – pulling the strings – before a vicious dig of her knee blurs it like a disturbed reflection, forcing his mind to retreat once again and sharpening his thoughts in preparation for—for what?

What would he do save the people he loves? Everything. What would he do to save himself? A year spent being reminded again and again in his every waking moment that he’s supposed to die to achieve the former tells him that he should do nothing, but the words of his armoured counterpart blow them away. He won’t see them again if he accepts this; no more stories, no more covert trips out of the Citadel, no more hugs or smiles or warmth.

 _Courage is keeping going in spite of the fear, right?_ he thinks as he closes his eyes, eliciting a displeased noise from his captor, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Prince; that thing is getting in you one way or another, so let’s get this over with, alright? Now, open those baby blues for me.”

 _Then, then…_ Determination crystallises from whatever remains of the day’s emotions, a core of steel forged from the iron of his spine and the blood still lining his tongue. Whatever the consequences, he would accept them. This act that his very blood warns him against, that makes his head spin with infinite possibilities at even considering it; he would do it, for himself, and for everyone else. He had thought about it before, on those sleepless nights that left him huddled in either his father’s or Clarus’ office, dozing off to the scritches of their pen on paper; but it was always nebulous, a spiderweb thought as easily broken as it was made.

Taking a last choked breath, Noctis waits until the very last moment, until cold steel nearly touches his closed eyelids. Waits until the world holds its breath around him, the stars and the moon, the ground and the air coming to a halt. And, when the needle touches his eyelid, starts pressing against it with increasing force, he opens his mouth, and he ** _screams_**.

He digs into that part of him that’s ice and mirrors, a thousand lives reflected back and taunting him with possibilities, the beginning and the end of everything he is. He takes the pain and the sadness, the joy and the laughter, the blood and the tears, drags them from the depths of his being and _flings_ them out of him, screaming his denial to the world so keen on seeing him die on its pyre. There is no magic in this, nothing more than his self, materialized, forced into being in a flurry of razor-sharp shards; his wings echoed a hundred, a thousand times across time and space.

*

“The blood price must be paid.” a voice whispers into his ears as icy fingers trail up his cheeks before lacing in front of his eyes, their intertwining patterns the same delicate stitches that close off his mind, gather him up one shard at a time and pull him back together in an approximation of who he was before scattering himself to the four winds.

The pain of being torn apart; the grating corruption; being made weaker and smaller, but no lesser; snow kept untouched, glistening in the moonlight.

“Hush, now—it is not your time yet.” the voice soothes him, numbing him until he can’t focus on anything but its patient intonations. “The price shall not be paid in full, not yet; but what you did shall have consequences.”

 _I don’t care_ , weakly, tonelessly, the barest traces of will still present in those words.

“Very well.”

Fingers turn into iron bands around his head before sinking in, digging into his brain with the howling fury of an everlasting winter, shattering the careful constructions that make a human being _human_ before restoring them in an endless cycle that leaves him gasping and screaming.

Suddenly, they are not fingers anymore but merciless stems, hollowing him out to make a home for themselves out his skull before taking root and blooming, each petal agony as it unfurls with excruciating slowness, royal blue and imperial violet against the starlit backdrop of his thoughts.

 _See no evil_ , as they curl into his eye sockets, fill them with trumpet-shaped blooms and obscure his sight; as they tangle into his hair and crown him in red-splattered blue.

 _Hear no evil,_ as they plug his ears, muffle everything but the rustling of their razor-sharp leaves against each other.

 _Speak no evil,_ as they press down on his tongue, fill his mouth with the bitterness of their buds, cracking open under his broken teeth.

“I pray that you choose well, O King of Light.”

*

Only sheer willpower stops Nyx from scratching at his eyes to tear away the veil obscuring his sight, already aware of the spell keeping it place even if he cannot feel it anymore, not with the twist of power keeping him from accessing the King’s magic. Still, it doesn’t stop him from stumbling back at the burning sensation spreading through his nerves, the buoyancy he had come to associate with the Crystal’s magic stolen from his veins, leaving him heavy and clumsy like he hasn’t felt since he stumbled from the burning ashes of his home.

The thought settles him, snaps his focus back into place in one swift push like a broken bone being set and forces him to grip the window sill for balance, to push through the sickening darkness pervading his senses; unlike the members of the Crownsguard whose floundering steps ring like gunshots in his suddenly sensitive ears. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of the spell, or his frantic attempt at counterbalancing the loss of his most used sense, but his surroundings grow clearer the longer he forces himself to be still, the many echoes and yells bouncing off the walls and mapping out the hallways, the wind bringing with it the smell of growing things and turning his head toward the garden.

But, in spite of the young prince’s spell – and he still doesn’t understand why and even less how a child this small could wreck such havoc in less than a minute – the tang of his own burnt blood is still heavy on his tongue, and the small amount still on the child’s shoulder calls to him, stretches intangible threads in his direction and allows him to trace it back to the source of this day’s troubles. Who would have thought that dropping off paperwork would lead to such a chain of events?

So, he waits patiently, leaning as far out of the window as he dares while reinforcing his hold over the simple cantrip he was taught as a child, carefully isolating himself from the rest of his senses – helped by his temporary blindness – and the throbbing of his hand to focus only on the coppery sweetness on his tongue which grows stronger by the minute as his blood reaches for him, strengthened by the magic pouring out of the one that wounded him in the first place. Nyx had thought until that moment that the King would be the most powerful individual he would ever face in his lifetime, but this slip of a boy proved him wrong, and _how_ : the wilderness of his burning gaze, his teeth bared and ready to tear out his throat. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought himself facing a coeurl cub separated from its pride.

“Libs would have a heart attack if he knew.” he says out loud, releasing the thought into the world to leave his mind clear and keep it on track. An Insomnian child as wild as any Galahdian, and the prince at that? Yeah, Libertus wouldn’t have survived the shock. As long as his sight and magic are gone, he can’t do anything but wait, and there is no harm in breaking the events into smaller pieces to better report them later, to tamp down on the urge to act as familiarly as he would have with any child back home who had shown even a hint of the turmoil he had glimpsed in the prince’s eyes. If he remembers that this child is _more_ than him in ways Insomnia has not ceased pounding into his head since the moment he got there, that he shouldn’t forget his place when talking to him, even if it is to save him, then everything should be fine.

He is pulled out of his thoughts by the warning signal of an incoming transmission and, allowing muscle memory to take over, he activates his com unerringly, turning down the volume as he does so in order to spare his temporarily enhanced hearing.

“Nyx, you alright?” Pelna’s worried voice comes through, hushed compared to the background noises Nyx picks up easily; glasses clinking against each other and forks scraping against plates,  “Crowe felt something strange from your position.”

“Just an escaped kitten, don’t worry about it.” Nyx reassures easily before running his tongue alongs his teeth, chasing after the residual taste of blood and ashes as it gets stronger, its tang picking up the closer his borrowed magic is to coming back.  “And don’t wait for me, I’ll swing by later.”

“Stop joking around, Nyx; she _crushed her glass._ If that’s what the kitten can do, I don’t wanna meet the mother.”

“Are you scared of cats, now? Didn’t think I would see the day.” Nyx _hears_ his fellow Glaive’s teeth grind in frustration – and isn’t that a novel experience – at his obvious attempt at changing the subject, and his hand grips the window tighter at having to lie to him, but he can’t afford to have any of them here, not if the incident is to be contained. After all, what could foreign strangers do that even guards the prince had known all of his life could not?

“Fuck it, I’m coming over— _don’t_ move.” A muffled strings of expletives follows the declaration as Pelna leaves the mess hall he was supposed to meet him at, the brush of leather against leather loud in Nyx’s hear as the dark-skinned Glaive puts on his coat.

“Pelna, wait—”

A shiver runs down his spine in warning an instant before he is violently pushed back inside the building, his arms crossing in front of his face instinctively to shield it from the icy winds howling outside, from the glass shards they send spinning in the air as every window is shattered by their explosive force. Even through the armoured material of his coat, the bite of diamond dust is as vicious as any knife, the ice particles slashing at his exposed skin and sneaking beneath his clothes when they cannot get at it directly, leaving a trail of frost up to his forearms. Pelna’s shouts are an afterthought as his back impacts the wall, stopping him in his tracks and dislodging his com from his ear before the delicate circuitry fails in the face of such harsh conditions.

Nyx’s sight comes back in flurry of snow; pain lancing down his back and the bite of frost added to the fire crackling beneath his skin. He doesn’t spare a second to think of himself before clumsily jumping back to his feet – impeded by the ice covering everything – and running back to his previously occupied position, because blood runs so thick in his mouth that it nearly chokes him with every breath and the _prince_ —

The Glaive is left speechless when he leans out the window, blinking frost from his eyelashes to peer through the weakening storm at the direction his magic pulls him to, because…

The garden is gone. The vast expanse of green – its hedges and flowerbeds, its trees and ponds – is gone, replaced by towering spears aimed at the heavens, great monstrosities of white and blue ice illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun. And at the center, barely visible to his just-recovered sight is a dot of black, motionless amidst the immaculate white surrounding him; and Nyx’s heart skips at the sight.

Shakily, he touches a finger to his mouth, and, when it comes out dry, he is off in a flash, throwing his dagger at hard as he can and reappearing in blue flames a few feet from his target, rolling to absorb the shock of his materialization and digging his other blade into the ground to control his skid over the frozen ground. He doesn’t care about the sluggishness of his movements in the subzero temperatures still lingering around the epicenter of the attack, about the metal and bones crumbling beneath his feet as he hurries to Noctis’ side and falls to his knees. A sigh of relief escapes him when he is greeted by the slight motions of the child’s chest, but it melts away when he notices his position; hands spread above his head and pinned to the ground, the still liquid blood darkening around him, his nearly closed eyes. The irony of his first clear image being the very opposite of what his last one had been is not lost on him, but it is too painful to consider for the moment and he puts it away for later.

The numbness he has come to associate with his comrades falling in battle settles around his shoulders as he reaches for the short sword, and he is thankful for it in that moment, just like he is when the same icy calm enshrouds him on the battlefield. Just as his fingers brush the hilt however, Noctis’ eyes snap open, and a distressed wheeze escapes him as he frantically shakes his head in denial, his whole body thrashing around and worsening his wounds. His wide eyes meeting Nyx’s once again is the last thing he remembers before the world turns to light around him and everything else stops mattering.

*

Pelna expects the worse when Nyx’s voice cuts off, but it is nothing to the panic that fills him at the sight of the frozen Citadel, at its carvings and golden gildings lost under sheets of white and blue. Somehow, he knows that his friend is at the center of this, and he doesn’t lose a moment before warping up and above the throngs of people milling around the gates, disregarding the rules stating that their powers were never to be used outside of controlled settings until they had gotten seniority. But it doesn’t matter, not when his hastily cobbled spell points him to the epicenter of the blast—attack? another assassination attempt on the royal family?

He flies above panicking maids, above stone-faced guards and worried councilmen, his feet bearing him when there is no space for him to throw his dagger without potentially hurting someone.

His curses grow worse and worse as the amount of people in his way increases, their forms a compact wall that stops him from getting closer as they refuse to move beyond a certain point. Teeth clenching, he roughly pushes past them, elbowing and making use of his bigger frame when necessary to make his way through the crowd.

Soon enough, he gets to the front, and the reason for their reluctance slaps him in the face, forces him to stumble back a few steps as his skin _freezes_ within the span of a few seconds, ice crystals climbing up his cheekbones in delicate vines and curling toward his eyes. Bringing a hand to his face does nothing to alleviate the numbness rapidly spreading through his body, targeting any hint of exposed skin and _biting_. As he let out a shaking breath that fans white in the evening air, he wishes that Crowe were here and not lost in the middle of the city with Libertus where he left them, keeping him company as he recovers from his last mission. But, looking at the diamond dust dancing in the air, he wonders if even her fire spells could have made a dent into the frozen landscape standing between him and Nyx, the magic maintaining it so strong that even he could feel it with no problem.

 _But_ , he thinks, _Nyx is somewhere in here_ , and he swallows back the ugly doubt that rears its head at the thought that he was perhaps too late, clenching his hand around the amulet of white bone and ashy hair thrumming with warmth as it points in the direction of the snowstorm.

“What happened?” he asks the first person whose attention he manages to drag away from the deadly, if awe-inspiring, sight, a maid with her arms wrapped around her shoulders for warmth, the lighter material of her dress in consideration of the weather inadequate to shield her against the biting cold. Still, she does not move and stays at the border between Insomnia and its snowglobe winter, peering at the dancing white in search for something, or someone.

“I don’t know,” she answers him worriedly, “we just saw the prince falling and then everything froze. No one was harmed too severely but even magic can’t pierce through it….” Her eyes drift to the councilmen attempting, and failing, to produce so much as a spark in the face of such power before going back to him.

“Alright, thanks.” Situation confirmed, he quickly ties off the amulet around his neck and pulls on his hood after tugging up his scarf to hide his nose and mouth. A deep breath, another effort of concentrated will to steady himself, and he’s off. _Wait for me, Nyx._

“Wait, don’t tell me you’re—” she attempts to stop him, but it’s already too late. “Sir!”

And Pelna runs through the divide, ignores the cutting winds as he dips into his body’s natural reserves to keep going, disregarding the King’s magic that had fallen silent the moment he had come close to the storm as if hushed by the sprawling white, the echoes of its power muffled by the untouched snow.

From the heart to the extremities and back again, he forces his blood to cycle through his already aching body, stealing warmth from his core and its inherent power to keep himself moving in the direction the hook dug deep into his breast tugs him.

_You can’t die!_

The gale steals from him everything as he trudges through feet of snow: the hundred of plans he creates and discards just as fast, his worries like gossamer threads, and even time itself. He has no idea how long he’s been fighting against this contained world, how long he’s pushed through numbness and darkness, the growing pinpoint of warmth against his chest and the occasional glimpses of green the only signs that he’s even moving at all. Even noise does not last in this place, nothing but the howling of the wind surviving in its austereness, feeding on itself in a spiral of give and take.

_Please, wake up! I didn’t mean to!_

But gradually, it settles down, evens out, and what had been an opaque wall of whiteness slowly turns into drifting snowflakes, not falling down as one might expect but hung in the air like tiny stars, burning with an inner light that his borrowed magic shies away from, retreating even deeper into his body to escape the sight. Red and gold and blue, the colors shift again and again in quick succession, dragging his eyes further into the distance, further than he thought he could see—until now.

_Please!_

The little voice he had thought to be his own pierces through him as golden light, pure and true, blinds him; ripples in great ribbons of starlight as it enshrouds its source, forcefully stilling everything around it as another _pull_ rips through Pelna, steals the breath from his lungs and replaces it with bitter desperation and brackish sadness.

In spite of it, he forces his head up and keeps going, shielding his eyes with a thrown arm as he takes one struggling step after the other, his charm growing hotter against his skin as he does so. The sluggishness of his thoughts, however, retreats little by little as he gets closer, contrary to the creeping weakness that shakes his limbs.

 _A little more,_ another step _; a little further,_ another twist of his blood; _nearly there,_ the light growing stronger _; nearly there,_ two figures resolving like cut-out silhouettes, black against the growing light.

Bloodshot brown meet teary blue as the prince looks up from Nyx’s still body at his approach, mouth soundlessly moving in time with the pleas echoing through Pelna’s mind – drops of water in a still pool – but nowhere else. His body shakes with even greater sobs as the Glaive laboriously kneels on the other side of his friend’s body and places his hands over the child’s bleeding ones, taking in Nyx’s burnt clothes and the zigzagging patterns emerging from under them as he adds his own magic to the desperate healing, gold tinging with red at the edges.

 _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ the prince – “Just Noctis; don’t call me that.” – keeps mouthing as he tries to restart Nyx’s heart, frantically following the path that was ripped through his body and healing torn muscle fibers and burst blood vessels alike, feeding frigid power into his body to keep him anchored. Pelna’s more visceral magic seamlessly melds with his as it pools in Nyx’s heart and _twists,_ forces one beat after the other and nudges Crystal magic into a delicate lattice that spreads from their laced fingers until it encompasses their patient’s whole body.

From the corner of his eyes, wisps of emotions glimmer – despair on a knife’s edge, blood-forged determination, pain like a great snake eating its own tail – but it all fades in the face of Nyx’s first shuddering breath, his chest rising under their joined hands as their combined might sinks into him.

Noctis’ smile is a weak and wavering as the Glaive’s eyes blink open, looking first at Noctis before turning his head toward Pelna’s wan look.

“Didn’t I tell you to not move?” The banter is automatic, the sign that they are both alive and well enough to joke about whatever nearly killed them this time.

“Sorry, I’m no good with instructions.”

And that’s when Noctis slumps forward, gasping and shaking, the air and ground crackling around him before the garden of ice shivers, and shatters; taking with it the last shreds of the child's consciousness which he had clung so hard to until this moment.

Pelna and Nyx’s arms rise to catch him, movements perfectly in sync as the King and his retinue rush in, no longer held back by the howling power that had kept them at bay all this time.

Weakly, Noctis’ fingers curl in Pelna’s sleeve, and he doesn’t let go until Clarus untangles them as he takes him in his arms, as his magic sinks into Noctis like it had so many times before, soothing his faltering heart and leading him down, down, down.

***

Noctis wakes with a name on his lips and his hands on his throat, jackknifing out of his too-familiar bed, gasping, before gentle hands wrap around his and lower them back in his lap, running soothing thumbs on the bandages covering them.

Looking into his father’s understanding green eyes as Cor’s hands prop him up, Noctis doesn’t know whether to smile or to cry; and so he does both, burrowing into his father’s comforting embrace and basking in their presence, allowing himself this small respite before facing the consequences of his actions.

_Later, later, later, there will be times for regrets later. For now, lick the blood from your lips and know that you survived._

_It’s enough._ _Survival is always enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's where the first part of this series ends! More about the consequences of Noct's choice, growing up (and growing old for some) and the people, new and old, in his life in the next instalment~


End file.
